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Craigslist Suing Padmapper

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Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#341

Post by jacoblyles »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #66

"(Craigslist) said it offered a license that would have allowed PadMapper to use its data on mobile applications but that the competitor did not accept the terms." But on the other hand, "users and developers are exasperated with Craigslist’s insistence on preserving an outdated interface and design." I don't know the legal merits of either party's position, but from an ethical perspective, I tend to side with Craigs…

The problem is that Craigslist has a monopoly. They use that monopoly to shut down competitors, resulting in millions of hours of lost time for users every month.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#342

Post by awkward »

I think a lot of the work to put a quality UI on craigslist ignores something very important about user psychology - seeing your data that you willingly gave to one organization publicly available in the hands of another one is generally perceived as creepy. Apartment listings may be less sensitive than other kinds of data, but they're still personal, and some users may not want their listing showing up in different venues even if others will take whatever publicity they get.

Most programmers and designers have made peace with the idea that what's public on the internet is public for the whole internet, but I think most people perceive this kind of information leakage as a lack of control. I think that Craigslist, more than most companies, has a real understanding of this, and a lot of their restrictions that may seem arbitrary to entrepreneurs come out of it.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#343

Post by sulife »

binarysolo wrote: post #313
sulife wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like they try to keep the facade up that CL barely makes money. They are swimming in so much $ it's insane.

For the immense value they provide to the hundreds of millions of users, having a 100-200M revenue is not "swimming in [insane] $". They're profitable alright, but let's not kid ourselves that they have by choice left a LOT of money on the table, which is why all these value-added services are trying to take a share of the CL-pie.

They have an estimated 70-80% margins... maybe I should have said drowning in money!

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#344

Post by jacoblyles »

ttran4 wrote: post #329
pg wrote: post #210

Craig Newmark said on Quora that the reason they didn't like people building stuff on top of Craigslist was simply the extra bandwidth they consumed: http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-on-... But now that 3Taps has found an ingenious way to get at the data with zero extra bandwidth cost to Craigslist (by retrieving it from the Google cache rather than CL itself), it's clear that what Craigslist…

Craigslist is a business. What makes it right for another company to profit from the contents they generated through the platform that they build? Yes, they got an early advantage into the market and has the critical mass that many company can seem to compete with but why take that away from them because they refuse to update/add new features. Instead of piggybacking on them and relying on their data to earn money, s…

Craigslist is a business. And a monopoly, like Microsoft in the 90s. Didn't they have the right to decide which browsers are packaged with their OS? Don't they even have the right to decide which browsers run on their OS?

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#345

Post by danielweber »

blissofbeing wrote: post #203

I feel like there is a win win solution for everyone here. How about Padmapper develop a plugin for chrome/firefox that once you go to a craigslist appartment list page, it does what it does now: loops through them all and displays them on a google map. Padmapper could even develop on API on their end which handled all the hard work of actually finding the correct address of the posts and sends it back to the plugin…

That sounds similar to RECAP, which is a free interface to the for-money PACER database of legal filings.

RECAP is on a better legal footing because the filings are public domain instead of owned by someone.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#346

Post by Kadrith »

stcredzero wrote: post #254
res0nat0r wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why Craigslist is valuable is because of it's large network . It is obvious that smaller sites like PadMapper want to slowly try and chip away at Craiglist content (see PadLister) after they hopefully gain enough traction to supplant them. Padmapper / Padlister are fine to start their own sites and have users come and post their listings there, but not to copy content from Craigslist after they specificall…

> It is obvious that smaller sites like PadMapper want to slowly try and chip away at Craiglist content It's not Craigslist's content. It's our content, the general public's. Craigslist is just a caretaker. Right now, it's a caretaker acting in its own interests against the public's.

It also does not mean that CL has any obligation to provide that data to another for free. If you want the data in multiple locations, post it to those other locations.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#347

Post by badclient »

This is the beginning of the end for CL. You can just sense by actions such as this what their survival strategy is. While legally they may win this battle, in the long run, I think CL is headed to deadpool in the next 5 years.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#348

Post by zem »

res0nat0r wrote: post #10

Here's a nugget from the article which I didn't hear anything about in the previous Padmapper postings and chat here on HN: "The company said it offered a license that would have allowed PadMapper to use its data on mobile applications but that the competitor did not accept the terms."

that is actually the point at which i lost sympathy for craigslist. they can license the data or not, but if they do they should not get to demand where and how it is used

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#349

Post by dredmorbius »

pg wrote: post #210

Craig Newmark said on Quora that the reason they didn't like people building stuff on top of Craigslist was simply the extra bandwidth they consumed: http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-on-... But now that 3Taps has found an ingenious way to get at the data with zero extra bandwidth cost to Craigslist (by retrieving it from the Google cache rather than CL itself), it's clear that what Craigslist…

Yep. I told you so: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4219543
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